Stories That Move
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Stories That Move
Judge Linda Davis | Redefining Addiction: From Stigma to Empathy
Judge Linda Davis, a distinguished public servant from Michigan, joins us to share her transformative journey in understanding addiction. From her beginnings as a teacher to her impactful career as a prosecutor and judge, Judge Davis reveals how her views shifted from seeing addiction as a moral failing to recognizing it as a chronic disease. Her personal connection runs deep, with her daughter's battle with heroin addiction serving as a catalyst for her advocacy. Through candid stories, she illustrates the power of empathy and education in reshaping addiction recovery systems.
As we explore Judge Davis's story, we uncover the stigma that often surrounds addiction and the shortcomings of traditional punitive measures. Her experiences in the legal system and as a mother led her to champion initiatives like Families Against Narcotics and Face Addiction Now. Judge Davis's insights into the importance of compassion in judicial solutions are both poignant and inspiring, emphasizing the need for a supportive community that understands addiction's complexities.
Throughout this compelling conversation, we delve into the broader implications of treating addiction with the same seriousness as other chronic health issues. By advocating for programs like Stronger Together and harm reduction sites, Judge Davis highlights the necessity of creating environments where recovery is attainable. Her unwavering commitment to breaking down stigma and implementing effective, compassionate approaches serves as a powerful reminder of the resilience needed in the fight against addiction. Join us for this impactful discussion that promises to challenge societal perceptions and inspire positive change.
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But it's amazing that if you do that, if you meet people where they're at and you keep providing educational opportunities for them, eventually we start really picking away at that stigma and people see people with substance use disorders as real people with real personalities and real talents that can be honed in and brought back to life again if we're just really willing to set up a support system that treats this like a disease rather than a moral failing.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of Stories that Move. I'm Mason Geiger, here with my co-host, matt Duhl. Today we are honored to speak with someone who has dedicated her life to both public service and making a profound impact in the fight against the opioid crisis.
Speaker 3:Our guest today is Judge Linda Davis, who has served as a prosecutor and then a district judge in Michigan, where she was fighting battles against opioid addiction on a daily basis. Judge Davis then had a challenging 180 degree perspective change when opioid addiction became a more personal journey.
Speaker 2:Through that perspective shift, she has played a key role in the formation of Families Against Narcotics and has served on numerous task force, including at the state and national levels.
Speaker 3:Her leadership and advocating for those affected by addiction has made a real difference in countless lives, and we're excited to dive into her story and the incredible work she's doing. So let's jump in, please. Welcome, judge Linda Davis, to Stories that Move. Welcome back to Stories that Move brought to you by Dream On Studios. I'm Matt Duhl and with me is Mason Geiger.
Speaker 2:How's everybody doing this morning?
Speaker 3:Doing good doing good, and we are excited for today's conversation. We are so grateful to have with us today Judge Linda Davis from Southeast Michigan. She was appointed to her judgeship back in March of 2000 by the governor of Michigan at the time and, prior to that, worked 13 years as the assistant prosecutor with Macomb County Prosecutor's Office. Judge Davis, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure.
Speaker 3:Awesome Well for our listeners just to hear from you and get to know you a little bit. Introduce yourself, tell us about yourself and what you are doing with your life.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I've had a number of different careers. I first was a teacher. I taught for 13 years at the high school level. I actually taught in an alternative program that had a lot of kids in it that were kicked out of school for various reasons, but one of the common threads that bound them all together is that they all suffered from some sort of substance use disorder, sometimes alcohol, sometimes other things that they were using at the time. I taught that program the last two years of my career. I was one of those young teachers that kept getting laid off.
Speaker 1:So I went back to college and got my law degree and got a job with the Macomb County Prosecutor's Office and while I was there I led their drug unit. So my job I was responsible for prosecuting drug cases in our county and basically putting people in jail that either used or sold drugs, and so that's really contrary to what I do today, but that was my story and I was proud of it. I thought I was really doing a big favor to society by cleaning up the streets and getting people off the streets that were using drugs and selling drugs. And then I was fortunate enough to be appointed to judge in the year 2000 by our governor, and I served 19 years as a district court judge and I know that courts are different in every state, but in Michigan we call our district court judges people's judges, because we're in a position where we're handling lower level crimes. We also do the preliminary exams for higher level crimes, but the cases that we keep are the low level crimes punishable by less than a year in jail, and so there's real opportunity there for us to help people, to get them into treatment, to do different things, rather than just put them in jail.
Speaker 1:But my mindset was that addiction was a moral failing, and so when I took on all three of those jobs, I brought a lot of stigma to those jobs. I was never taught, even though all three of those careers obviously were amassed with issues around addiction. I never received any training on addiction. Not once in my nine years of college did anyone ever talk to me about addiction. And yet I was making decisions every single day that affected people's lives, even their liberty, without really any knowledge about the subject matter that I was dealing with at all. I thought if you used and sold drugs, you were a criminal and that you needed to be in jail, and that was kind of the mentality that I brought to all of this. So I've done a 180, and my life really changed through a number of things that happened. But I've really changed my attitude about that and I believe that I am the voice of change in Michigan, really treating addiction as a disease and not a moral failing, and encouraging others to do that as well.
Speaker 3:Awesome, awesome, great, great introduction. So we obviously want to dive into that 180 and some of the perspective change. But before we do that, let's rewind just a little bit. Tell us about where you were born, what childhood looked like for you and, yeah, just some of your beginnings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a kind of an unusual story, because people like me don't normally end up being judges. Kind of an unusual story because people like me don't normally end up being judges. I was born to a middle-class family. My mom and dad both had fifth grade educations, but fortunately for my brother they really promoted education. Not so much for me.
Speaker 1:I'm old enough that a lot of girls in my high school did not even go to college. We were encouraged to get married and have babies. As a matter of fact, I did not start college until I was already a mother, and so I had gotten out of high school, got married right away, had a child right away and loved being a mom. But I really felt like I had more to offer and wanted to do something bigger than just stay at home every day and raise my son. And I want to say that very kindly, because I think stay-at-home moms are great and it certainly is a job in and of itself. But I was just one of those people that that was not a good fit for me. I was not happy being home all day long. I loved being a mom, but I wanted to do something else in addition to that, so that's really what sparked my interest to go back to college.
Speaker 1:I was not encouraged to go to college at all. Girls got married, had babies. That's what we did, and so I can remember even going to my senior high school counselor and I had some inklings that maybe I'd like to go to college and I was a straight-A student in high school, but she told me to get married and have babies, that I didn't have the aptitude to go to college, which I didn't quite understand. But you know, when kids are young, they believe what people tell them, and I believe that she knew what she was talking about and I'd love to have those days to do over again, because I didn't learn until well into my 30s what I was really capable of and I really attribute it to comments like that that really held me back from what I could have accomplished.
Speaker 2:Wow so.
Speaker 1:I was raised by great parents, though there was no drinking or alcohol or any kind of drugs in my family whatsoever. I never saw my mom and dad take a drink, and so I had a great upbringing, was really sheltered from a lot of things, and so when I found myself in situations where I was dealing with this, the only frame of reference that I had about addiction were things that I saw on television, which used to be so stigmatizing. Tv programs have gotten better now with depicting addiction as a disease and not a moral failing, but years ago that was not the case. It was always the poor guy laying in a gutter with needles in his arms and trash all around him, a broken family or families that they themselves were bad people for an array of different things, or at least that was what it was portrayed at. And so that's really the image of addiction that I brought to every job that I had, the image of addiction that I brought to every job that I had, and it wasn't until I was well into my judgeship, about seven years into it, that I started hearing about drug courts. I will tell you that I had a lot of inklings that we were doing things wrong because the same people that I prosecuted for drug problems were now coming through my court with drug problems, and jail time really had not done much to change the trajectory on what they were doing with their lives. But when you talk about stigma, stigma runs really deep, and without education we don't really change those attitudes.
Speaker 1:But I started taking a lot of classes around addiction. I wanted to start a drug court. I was a chief judge of my court. Addiction I wanted to start a drug court. I was a chief judge of my court, and I wanted our court to be the best court in the state of Michigan, and so I started taking classes and thought, if this is something, if it's thinking outside the box and it's something that'll work and enhance people's lives and make our community safer, I'm all on board to do that, and so I was really curious about it.
Speaker 1:I will tell you, though, that I really didn't think drug courts would work. I thought I never was one of those judges that gave myself a whole lot of self-importance, you know. It didn't define who I was. So I didn't have what we call, in Michigan, black Road fever by any stretch of the imagination, and I thought my telling people that you're doing great and you go for it, that you know you had a good week. You can put another one into this and change people's lives. I really didn't think that I had the power or the ability to do that, but it was really amazing to me that I didn't call on experiences I had before. I want to backtrack just a little bit, because I told you I taught an alternative ed program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That was an interesting thing, given my background, because I never was exposed to young people that weren't from good homes, and so I was dealing with these 12 boys that were really hardcore. I mean they came in wearing chains on their belts and all of that kind of thing and they did a lot of things to try to scare me out of the classroom. I mean, this was a group of boys that had been failed many times from other people in their lives and they were mean to teachers and teachers just abandoned them and they could run amok and do whatever they wanted to do and there was no accountability. But I just they didn't realize it, but by that time I was a single mom and I needed the job more than I feared them, and so I just stayed the course with them and I always treated them with a lot of respect. I met their anger with kindness and it was amazing to me how they became nice young men by the end of the year. I can tell you, without doubt they were some of the nicest kids that I ever taught and they had my back. I stayed with them and showed them respect and as a result of that I got that tenfold back from them, but that truly did not change my attitude. It was really a personal life experience that I had that really brought me full circle.
Speaker 1:I was seeing an array of young people coming into my courtroom that were addicted to opiates and heroin, and I ran our drug unit as a prosecutor and we never saw a heroin case. I had one the whole time that I was prosecuting cases, which was 13 years, so it wasn't something that was prevalent in our community. We had two young people that died about 10 days apart from one another. Both of them were 17 years of age and went to school with my daughter and I knew both young men and they didn't quite fit the bill of what I thought drug addiction looked like. And then at four o'clock in the morning one morning I was awakened by my daughter crying and went in to find out what was going on. I don't know why teenagers find the middle of the night the time that they want to talk to you, but that's kind of the way it works when you're a mom. And I went in, sat down on the bed and the first thing out of her mouth is Mom, you're going to be so disappointed. You're going to hate me when I tell you what I've got to tell you, I couldn't imagine what that could be. But after hours and I do mean hours of conjoling and trying to get her to tell me what was going on, because it was obvious she was very distressed she told me that she was addicted to heroin. I didn't know how that could happen.
Speaker 1:I didn't learn until years later that she had had a surgery earlier in the summer. She was a senior in high school and she did competitive cheerleading straight-A student, competitive cheerleader, cheerleading straight-A student, competitive cheerleader and she had messed up her knee and had knee surgery and was prescribed large doses of Vicodin and I was told to give them to her around the clock and to stay ahead of the pain. They gave me a bottle of 90 of them and I made her take all 90 of them and I did not realize that these were addictive drugs and could lead to addiction. Unbeknownst to me, she got addicted to them and, you know, could not get the prescription any longer.
Speaker 1:We ran out and so she had a boyfriend that was using heroin and she started using heroin with him. He convinced her it was a lot cheaper and would make her feel good because she was sick all the time and she tried it and fell in love with it and was off to the races. She was living in my house for about six months before I found out that she was using drugs and I was clueless. I mean, I told you I had no education around this. I didn't know any of the signs to look for, and a lot of the signs around teenagers really look like teenage behavior, to be honest with you weight loss, sloppiness, changing friends, being not interested in things they used to be interested in. I mean, I pretty much just described a normal teenager to you.
Speaker 1:Yes, but, they're also what are signs and symptoms of drug use amongst young people. And so we began our journey trying to seek help. Once I learned that you know what she was dealing with that morning, as a judge, we have lots of resources, right. So I got into mom mode and got on the phone and started calling every agency that, as a judge, I referred people to, and boy, what a rude awakening that was. You know I did not call saying hey, I'm Judge Davis and I have a daughter that's detoxing from heroin right now. Can you help me out? I was a mom calling in a panicked state trying to find help for their child. I was treated rudely. I was called names, my daughter was called names, and I literally called for four solid hours and was never able to access a single treatment facility that would help us. She was 17 years of age, so the liability for dealing with a 17-year-old drug addict, so to speak, I guess, was huge and nobody would touch it, and so I was really left without knowing what to do next. I mean, parents don't get a handbook on this, and apparently judges don't either, and so I did the only next thing I knew to do. I had called every hospital asking if I could bring her in, and all of them told me no as well, that they did not detox people, and particularly 17-year-olds, because of the liability issue again. And I went online looking for drug rehab places and I typed in best drug rehab places and literally got bombarded with a million that claimed to be the best in the country. So that was really not very helpful and so I called.
Speaker 1:At the time I sat on the board of one of our local hospitals and I called the CEO at home that night well early morning hours at this time, and literally begged him to admit her for a day or two. I was afraid she was going to die I didn't know that you couldn't die from heroin withdrawal and I was panicked because she was so sick by that time that she was literally going to die and begged him to admit her for a day or two until I figured out what my next steps were going to be. It took some conjoling, but he agreed to do it and my last words to him were please don't tell anybody who I am. Just tell them that you want her admitted for whatever reason you say, but don't let them know who I am. By that time. I had been shamed enough that morning that I realized that this wasn't going to be a popular political issue for me to admit that I had a daughter that was addicted to heroin, and so I knew by the time I was done with those phone calls that this was something I needed to keep a secret For the next year. I did not even tell my family about this. I dealt with it totally on my own. My secretary was the only person that knew, and she had to know because I wasn't going to show up to work for a while, and so I called her.
Speaker 1:Once they got her admitted and got her comfortable, I called my secretary to let her know I was going to be taking some time off of work, and I broke down and I was crying and I was dressed in sweats. I hadn't put on any makeup. That morning I didn't even comb my hair. I don't believe I was in panic mom mode and just went to the hospital, and so I didn't look like a judge, I guess. And while I was standing, once I got her comfortable, I walked out into the hallway and I was sobbing and I'm not a crier, but I was just so exhausted by that time and scared. I had been told many, many times that morning that she was probably going to die because people don't get well from heroin addiction, and so I was truly very frightened that I was going to lose my beautiful young daughter. And I was sobbing to the point where I could hardly talk. And I heard a nurse and a doctor that were about 15 feet away from me and the nurse said to the doctor look at that pathetic mom crying over her junkie daughter. And that was a defining moment for me. I have to say that was a hindsight thought, but I knew how broken the system was at that point and this is not how people should feel that we're trying to find help. And I kind of knew in that moment that if we ever got through this, or even if we didn't, that I wanted to be the voice of change in Michigan and use what authority I had as a judge to really make changes in the system.
Speaker 1:I'm going to wrap that story up pretty fast. My daughter struggled for three years in and out of seven very expensive treatment facilities that truly were nothing more than very expensive 12-step meetings. I did not see a lot of therapy going on at these places, it was mostly just talking and being supportive, and she never stopped using as a result of being in an expensive treatment facility. She actually found her sobriety at a three-quarter house when she was surrounded by a lot of other young girls who were trying to find their sobriety and fortunately hooked up with the right young people and has celebrated 17 years of being opiate-free this past summer.
Speaker 1:She's married, she has a family. I have two beautiful grandsons from her. She's a great mom and a great person and I feel like I have my daughter back. But unfortunately that's not the ending story for a lot of families. Yeah, and so I started was one of the founding members of an organization that we started here in Macomb County called Face Addiction Now it was formerly called Families Against Narcotics and we started devising programs that filled gaps for people like my daughter, to provide a continuum of care for them that ensured long-term success and recovery.
Speaker 3:Wow, thank you for sharing that yeah.
Speaker 2:That is a uh, a heart-wrenching, yet beautiful, beautiful story, and so, yeah, just grateful for you and your family that you're able to be on the other side of that as you're going through this and your perspective is like, when you talk about that 180, I mean, it is in a day that you go from being on one side to the other side and it's like a flip of a switch to the other side. And it's like a flip of a switch, um, how, yeah, I mean, how long did it take you to even like, just process through that and then be like I want to be a part of a solution because the system currently isn't working, like, just walk us through that journey a little bit yeah, I'd like to tell you it was a flip of the switch.
Speaker 1:But, like like I told you, stigma runs deep, and I even had a lot of stigmas about my daughter's addiction. I still had no education around it, so I began to self-educate myself. I read every book, every story, every memoir of any parent that ever went through this with a child child, and the one thing that resonated through all of them is the similarities of the stories. It didn't matter what economic background you came from. It didn't matter who you were, how much education you had, whether you came from a good family or a bad family. The disease itself manifests itself the same in everybody, and what the families go through is pretty similar across the board as well. And so I was fortunate enough to live next door to two police officers, a husband and wife, and we would talk over the fence every night. They knew my daughter and were devastated, and they were one of the people that told me that I needed to brace myself, that she probably was going to die Because that was police officers experiences, that they never saw people in recovery. They only delivered the bad news to families. But she wanted to organize a town hall meeting and at that time I wasn't talking openly about my daughter's addiction. I was still keeping it a secret. There were only a select few people who knew about it. But she had asked me if I would show up as a judge and talk about what I was seeing in my courtroom and what we were doing to offer treatment modalities for this, and I agreed to do that. So I got there and it was shocking to me because I truly thought like there were only a few of us going through this. I mean, I knew two young men had died. She was telling me she was going to overdoses regularly.
Speaker 1:It actually ended up that the Vala Victorian of our high school was addicted to heroin as well, and so it was so prevalent. And yet none of us knew, and our school district knew what was going on, but none of them cared to call the parents to let us know that this was going on in the school. You know they were afraid of the political fallout of that, of not having people enroll at that school, and so the whole system was broken. Just every system that I looked at just had so many flaws in it. So I showed up at this meeting and there were about 100 people that showed up and it was people from all walks of life. We had people even that came from other states. When they heard that a group was going to talk openly about this, so many parents were dealing with it. We just had no idea, and they were traveling from everywhere and there were about 100 people that showed up.
Speaker 1:We had superintendents from schools, we had police officers, people that were in recovery, people that were still using drugs, families that were suffering, and I've never been in such an emotionally charged environment A lot of tears, a lot of anger, a lot of finger pointing. It was pretty chaotic, to be honest with you, and one of our young people in recovery said look, we're not going to get anywhere by just being angry and pointing fingers at people. Let's work together and come up with some solutions. Let some of us that are younger go into your schools and talk to these young people. We were sitting in their seat not long ago and we never thought this could happen to us, and a lot of them had gotten addicted from either a wisdom tooth being pulled or a sports injury. Let us talk about how easy this can happen and how difficult it is to come back from it. This can happen and how difficult it is to come back from it. And so we agreed we would screen those speakers very carefully.
Speaker 1:But what happened that night is I realized what a hypocrite I was going to be if I stayed silent about what I was going through in my own family. We were expecting the public to come together and talk about this in an open, honest way and start finding solutions. I had to be a part of that, and so the first time that night, I shared my story and I'll tell you, it was like the weight of the world came off my shoulders and instead of judgment, I got a lot of support and it was safe to share it in that environment. So we began going around to different schools talking about this, taking young people in recovery with us who were just the most remarkable young men. They were all men. At that time. It was remarkable to hear how warm and appropriately they talked about addiction and what it had done to their life.
Speaker 1:There was such a worry that they would glorify drug use, and there was none of that. Drug use is not glorifying. It might feel good in the beginning, but it certainly doesn't feel good toward the end of it, and that's how they painted it. And the more schools we got invited to, the more schools we got invited to, and people that were at those were parents, and so they had an array of different jobs. And one of the women that showed up was the CEO of one of our local hospitals, and she had no clue that this was.
Speaker 1:By that time, we had learned that this was a prescription drug problem that was leading young people into heroin, and so when she heard our talk, she had us start coming and training her nurses and her doctors, and it truly just took on a life of its own, where now we have 23 chapters in the state of Michigan that provide community education to their communities. We work with 20 major hospital systems, 175 police departments, numerous, numerous drug courts and other judges that want to find solutions to this, and we have really changed how people look at addiction in the state of Michigan. We have a long way to go, but it's not an overnight change. I still find myself having stigmatizing thoughts, like I was in a meeting today where we're applying for a grant around aiding pregnant women who are also fighting addiction at the same time, and I found myself having all these judgments.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I have to really reel myself in and remind myself this is a disease, it's not a choice, it's not a moral failing, and they have a right at being good parents, as I did, and we owe it to them to give them the tools to do that. And so it's a constant battle to undo stigma, and I want to make that clear because we always talk about treating people with addiction where they're at. Like, we do a lot of harm reduction protocols with our programs. We pass out clean syringes, test strips, that kind of thing. At the first I was opposed to all of those things, but they work and they are an avenue to get people connected to treatment.
Speaker 1:And we're always saying we have to meet people where they're at. Not everybody just can turn off a switch and stop using drugs, and so if we treat them kindly while they're in their use, they're more apt to ask us for help when they find themselves wanting a different lifestyle but don't know how to get there. But we don't do that in the system. Like, we work with a lot of police departments that have a lot of stigma and we just keep educating them. We have to meet them where they're at too, and we can only do with them what they're comfortable doing. But it's amazing that if you do that, if you meet people where they're at and you keep providing educational opportunities for them, eventually we start really picking away at that stigma and people see people with substance use disorders as real people with real personalities and real talents that can be honed in and brought back to life again, if we're just really willing to set up a support system that treats this like a disease rather than a moral failing. And, mason, you had said that you turn that switch. But I can turn the switch, but the system hasn't turned the switch. You know, when we have hospitals that are saying you know, we'll detox you and there's no continuing services after that, that's not treating this like a disease. We would never do that with any other disease.
Speaker 1:And so what we're missing around the world of addiction is a continuum of care, and that's what our organization has done is that we've set up various programs. About 96% of our staff are people that have lived experience. They're either in recovery themselves or they're family members like myself, who tried to navigate this broken system, and we sit down and say what was broken and how can we fix it. And if you come to the table and you say yeah, but yeah, but you're not part of our team, because we're looking for people that know how to crawl over fences and under fences and break through them, and we've really built an organization of strength that won't take no for an answer and has found real solutions to very difficult health problems that exist in our community, and we've had tremendous success.
Speaker 1:We have a program that's a self-report program that we partnered with 175 police departments and it's so simple it's. If you're suffering from an addiction these police departments have agreed. All you have to do is come in and ask for help. They'll offer you a bottle of water and a granola bar. Call us, we'll send somebody to the police department and while you are in the lobby, we will access treatment for you. Our police officers thought that wouldn't work, and then the first month that we opened our doors, we had over 300 people that walked in and asked for help in a variety of different police departments, and so that's kind of spread like wildfire and we have placed. We started that program in 2017, and we've placed over 14,000 people into treatment through just a self-referral program where all you agreed to do is be nice to people when they walk through the door.
Speaker 1:It's not a big change to ask you know, and so we knew that that program was really being successful. So we thought where else are we missing people? That program was really being successful, so we thought where else are we missing people? And we just kept devising programs that meet people where they're at and we help them find their journey to recovery, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. So, talking about stigma, what are some of those things that you would share with our listeners to say these are the misconceptions, these are the things you need to know about addiction.
Speaker 1:I think the best way I can do it is kind of through a visual. When my daughter was using, she became that stereotype person that we think about. She'd lost a lot of weight, she quit taking care of herself, she didn't brush her teeth, she stole from us, she lied to us, she did all of those things that we think are addiction. They're really a symptom of the disease and she got really unrecognizable to me. Conversation with her that's just a normal mom and daughter conversation. It seemed like every conversation we had was around drug use. How did you do today? What did you do today? Who did you hang out with? Where did you go? What did you do? Did you use anything?
Speaker 1:That was our life for three solid years and I used to mourn. I'd walk into like a Starbucks and I'd see young girls. I'm going to get teary-eyed here. I'd see young girls sitting there studying and I'd think, oh my God, what I would give to see my daughter sitting at that table just doing that simple thing. She had been accepted at three colleges before her drug addiction started and I thought, or I'd go to a mall and I'd see a mom and a daughter shopping and I'd think we're never going to do this again. You know we're never going to have normal mother-daughter activities. I know when she got married, her wedding was such a special moment for me because I missed proms, I missed all those dating situations, all of those things, because her addiction robbed us. They didn't only rob her, they robbed me of those experiences as well, and it was the most painful thing I've ever gone through.
Speaker 1:So our programs always include components for families as well, like we don't only do peer coaches for the people that are suffering from substance use disorder, we also do them for the parents that are going through this, helping them navigate it. And we have a 12-step educational program. We're trying to change it so it's not 12 steps, because it sounds like a support meeting and you certainly get a lot of support there, but there are 12 educational things that parents should know on how to love someone with an addiction. Because I didn't know how to love someone with an addiction, because I didn't know how to love someone with an addiction and I enabled my daughter and, unbeknownst to me, I kept her in her addiction because I didn't know how to draw boundaries with her. Loving someone with an addiction is different than loving a child that is not sick with this disease and we used to teach tough love, like just draw the boundary and kick them out and tell them they're on their own. That is not how people get well. They don't get well in isolation. They need family support, but they need appropriate family support and everything that families are doing should be geared toward recovery and there is a way to do that. But you need to be taught that. So we have a Stronger Together program. That's an online program that anybody can join and we really try to help educate parents on how to love their loved one and get them through this process in the healthiest way possible.
Speaker 1:It doesn't work 100% of the time because this is a disease and, just like cancer, not everybody gets well from cancer. Not everybody gets well from addiction. But it's really amazing how much the diseases mirror one another. You know there's statistics around if you stay cancer-free for a year, there's only like a 43% chance that you'll ever get cancer again. The same is true for addiction and they're almost identical comparison numbers At five years, there's a 76% chance that you'll never get cancer again, and if you can keep someone drug-free for five years, there's a 76% chance that they won't go back and use substances again, but we don't have programs that are set up to stay that long course with people. It's a vicious circle. We send them to this very expensive treatment. They come out Within a few days, they relapse. They're right back into that same treatment.
Speaker 1:The average person goes to 7 to 15 inpatient treatment facilities, and many of them never find recovery in any of them, and so we really need to look at how we treat addiction as a society and we need to start treating it like the disease it's in, and then the stigma will truly start going away. But as long as we're going to treat it like a moral failing and put people out that are sick and let them thin for themselves and die in the streets with dirty equipment, we're not treating this like a disease. You know, harm reduction is a perfect example of that, and I know that's a touchy subject for a lot of people, and it was for me too. I'm going to tell you that every stigma that anybody listening had, I had it tenfold, and I think when you're working like as a prosecutor, as a judge, a police officer or in an emergency room, you see people that they're very worse with addiction, and so that becomes what you think addiction is is what you're seeing in front of you at that moment and we very rarely get to see the recovery side of it. But the recovery side is amazing and is beautiful, and people that go through this journey end up being some of the best people that I've ever met in my life. They have a compassion and ability to love and accept things like nothing I've ever seen before. But we have to be willing to stay that course with people.
Speaker 1:But with addiction, say for example, with diabetes, that's oftentimes caused by obesity. You know you can create your own diabetes. So I guess it's a moral failing if you want to compare it to addiction. Because you've been told by doctors quit eating and you don't do it. Don't eat sweets, but you continue to eat sugar and sweets and you end up in the hospital because on Thanksgiving you ate pumpkin pie and you went into a diabetic reaction. We don't ostracize you for that. We educate you about it. We tell you look, if you're going to continue to eat like this, then these are the results that you can expect. But we don't send you home with dirty syringes to inject your insulin with because you couldn't follow the rules. That's what we do with people with addiction, you know we let them die horrible deaths with losing limbs because they become obsessed where they're injecting drugs, and it's not because they want that lifestyle, it's because we don't have a system of care that sets up that allows them to find recovery. And so when we treat people like crap when they're coming through the system, I have an example.
Speaker 1:We have a harm reduction site where we had a young man that came up to it. That was in my drug court and I never was able to make much traction with him. But he didn't show up very much either and he went missing. We had a bench worn out for him and he showed up at our harm reduction site and he would get clean syringes and test strips and he had no desire to stop using drugs at that time. But I was told that people that are treated humanely while they're in the midst of their addiction are five times more likely to seek treatment later. So I thought, okay, well, I'm willing to give this a try, anything that'll save a life right.
Speaker 1:And so this young man showed up and he had been injecting into his neck and had to have neck surgery. And they did the neck surgery and did no follow-up care with this young man. Or if they did offer it to him, he never went back. That could be the case too. But to make a long story short, he got an abscess at the site where they did the surgery and it was big. It was about the size of a tennis ball and we literally had to cut his shirt off. It was just literally glued to his back from where he was seeping from this infection and he was burning up.
Speaker 1:And we told him you got to get to a hospital. And he said no, they treat me so crummy when I go there. I'm not going back to a hospital again. So we called the doctor that works with us on our harm reduction site and we told him what was going on. He said keep him there, I'll get my car right now and I'm driving down there to see him.
Speaker 1:So he came down to our harm reduction site and he said to this young kid he said look, we have got to get you to a hospital now or you're not going to make it.
Speaker 1:And he said I'm going to ride in the ambulance with you. I'll have one of the fan people drive my car back to the hospital. I'm going to ride with you and I give you my word no one will treat you disrespectfully. So he got in the ambulance. He drove back to the hospital with this young man. He cleaned up his wound, he provided aftercare to him through his clinic, got this young man well. The man entered into treatment. Shortly after that. He is celebrating two years of recovery now has a job for the first time in his life and is a very proud individual that he's been able to overcome this disease. But we can't expect people to ask for help if they're going to be treated like they're less than and unworthy of when they walk in and they're sick and they're asking for help. And so until the system changes, the stigma around addiction is not going to change.
Speaker 2:So for some of our listeners who maybe have someone in their family or someone they know who is going through this battle. What are some? How can they best love someone going through addiction recovery?
Speaker 1:Well, number one you never give up on them, but you draw boundaries that let them clearly know that using around you is not something that you can accept, that you'll love them although they're using, but that that is not acceptable in your household and that might mean that you have to find a three-quarter house for them to go to or a living situation that may not be your first choice for your child, but you have to draw your own boundaries. And parents, just like people with addiction, go through a process. So do the parents. We're in denial a lot that our kids are different than everybody else that uses drugs and that somehow they're miraculously going to get well. People don't get well without treatment, and so you talk to them about treatment at every opportunity and if they get mad, you let them get mad, don't lecture them. Let them know you love them and that it breaks your heart to see what they're doing to themselves. You know, and that you're here to help if they want recovery, that you'll help with transportation. You'll do whatever it is, as long as it's recovery-oriented. Love them to death. That's the way that you do this.
Speaker 1:My daughter would clearly tell you that if I had not, I didn't know any other way to love her but to support her. To be honest with you, and I did a lot of things wrong, but I did a lot of things right too, and she'll tell you, if it had not been for me sticking it out with her, that she would have never made it. You know, it's a very isolating disease. There's no more self-loathing about the disease than people have for themselves that are using. I work in an office full of people that are in recovery and everyone would tell you I was suicidal when I was using. I hated myself. This was not the life I ever pictured for myself. It's not a choice. Nobody in their right mind would ever choose to be addicted to substances. You lose your family, you lose your friends, you lose your job. That is not a life choice for people.
Speaker 3:What should people know? I mean, you know the opioid crisis is Feels like it's a very American problem, right? I mean, it's something that really birthed here and through some of the prescriptions like that your daughter were given out of her surgery. What should parents know for kids who are going through some of those surgeries and some of that health care things, things to just be looking out for and to be cautious of?
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing you need to do is educate yourself about them. Surgeries only need pain medication for the first 72 hours and after that you can be weaned off those pain medications for most surgeries I mean. There's always exceptions to this and some people need to be on long-term pain management. But make sure, number one, you're going to reputable doctors that don't use that as a first resort. I've had some really major surgeries that I never took any pain medication other than ibuprofen and Tylenol, and if you do that in combination the Red Wings do that their doctor sits on our board as an advisory member and that's what they do with their players. When they get injured they do combinations of ibuprofen and Tylenol and if you do it in the right dosing, it can act just like Vicodin as far as a pain management medication, and so really understand that giving these to your children just like their candy is going to lead to a problem for them, that it should be done sparingly and try other things first and talk to your doctors about it.
Speaker 1:You know I had a pretty serious surgery a couple of years ago and I told the doctor I don't want any opioids, I don't want to be put under with opioids and I don't want any opioids. I don't want to be put under with opioids and I don't want any opioids. And he said well, you're making my job very difficult. And I said that's why you make the big money. I'm the patient. I don't want opioids. Find a way to do this without them. And he did. And it's amazing because we heal faster without opioids and we also heal faster without opioids.
Speaker 1:And so I never took any. I took muscle relaxers. We did some alternative things to help me through the pain, but I never took anything for it. And was I uncomfortable for a few days? Yes, I was really uncomfortable for a few days, but I would have rather had been uncomfortable for a few days than to, number one, have those pills around anywhere in my house. Or, secondly, take a chance because I'm as susceptible as anybody is to addiction, of getting addicted to them, because I don't know any better. And so it's just really educating yourself, having really frank discussions with your doctors. Doctors are doing a better job of not prescribing long-term use of opioids and letting them know that you want this child on those as short of a period as they can possibly be on. And we say, well, you have to. If you get a wisdom tooth pulled, you have to be on opioids. You don't? We're the only country in the world that uses opioids for dental surgery.
Speaker 1:You know, the rest of the world doesn't feel less pain than we do, guys. We just don't want to feel any pain. You know and the pain is a good indicator that you need to take it easy, that you need to slow down, that you need to rest more. You know that you're not ready to eat solid foods yet. You know all of those kinds of things. So it's like us changing our mindset about what we're willing to tolerate in the short term to be healthy in the long term.
Speaker 3:That's good. You mentioned earlier the you know, as you were starting in your journey, you held this secret for almost a year and that evening that you went and shared and just opened up and told your story, you found this incredible reception and community and again, I think for you and you are probably one of the more extreme examples of you are a district judge. You're in an elected position, obviously, that you coming forward with this. You weren't, you weren't pushed out of the courtroom. From from what I can tell with your story, it seems like your career continued and you found people. What would you say to people just in terms of they're feeling lost, they're feeling alone, they're feeling they have to keep this under wraps. If anybody were to know whether it's an addicted person or a family member of someone who's addicted, what would your encouragement be to them?
Speaker 1:that you'd never be ashamed to talk about any other disease that your child had, and we have to get over that. You know that sharing this is healing for other people. I think it's really opened up communication for so many people. I mean, I can remember being at an event that I spoke at. It was at a college and the dean of the college came up and said oh my God, you just have saved my life.
Speaker 1:She said I'm under so much stress all the time. I have a daughter that suffers from addiction. I've never told a soul about it. I've been living with this for years and it just weighs me down every single day. And she says just hearing you talk about it gave me relief and I'm not going to keep this a secret any longer.
Speaker 1:I try to talk about my daughter's addiction very respectfully and paint who she is as a person, because she's a remarkable young woman and a remarkable person and her disease does not define her. It's only a small part of what happened to her, just like cancer or diabetes or any other disease that you might get, and it doesn't have to be your life story. I remember the last time that she went away, the time that she got well, and she said to me she goes, mom, I'm going to go because I can see that what I'm doing is killing you. But she said, in all honesty, what's the point? Nobody's ever going to respect me again. I'm always going to be that black sheep, that drug addict in the family. And I said I would hope that's not true that I think that if you continue to put one foot in front of the other and you do the next right thing, that someday this will just be a blip on the radar for you. And I can tell you that within our own family it is never a topic of conversation, ever about her.
Speaker 1:Everybody has seen her strength. They respect her. They know the journey was hard. We're all blessed to have her still with us and I think we cherish every moment of that. And it is a blip on the radar. You know of what it could have been. And so, for those parents that aren't talking, find a safe group, and they're all over the place. I mean, in Michigan, we're it, you know, but there are groups and there's others as well, but there's places all over. You can join one of our Stronger Together groups online. You don't even have to say your name if you don't want to, but just start talking about it. You know, and you're going to find tremendous support and tremendous relief in that and answers to a very difficult, difficult situation in your life. And so we have to, as a community, start offering forums and people in places like what you guys are doing, that open up the dialogue and get people talking about this in a transparent, honest way.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic as we kind of start to wind things down here, the work that you're doing with Face Addiction. Now, what are some things you're excited about in the future, or like momentum that you're feeling, because it's a big challenge that I mean, it's an uphill battle that you guys are fighting, and so what are the things that keep you motivated?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we just continue to find gaps in the system, and there's so many of them that, honestly, for everything you fix, you can find five more things that need to be fixed.
Speaker 1:So I don't think we're ever going to run out of work. To be honest with you, you know the challenge is always having the money to do programming with. You know, we faced some real budget cuts this year and so we're having to downsize some of our programming, which is always heartbreaking because we do good work and we're relied on in our community, and so that's pretty heartbreaking for us, but we will find ways through it because that's what we do. But you know, we've got a lot of diversion. We're the largest deflection and diversion programming in the entire United States because of the volume of police departments and hospitals that we work with. We have quick response team, where we actually make house calls to people that have overdosed. We work with diversion programs where, rather than arresting people, police officers are calling us and offering them to get into treatment instead of getting a criminal record, which is amazing for police officers to have changed their attitudes about that.
Speaker 1:One of the things we're talking about is when we've been going out to houses some of our officers have noticed there's often young kids in the home that really are being pretty neglected because their parents are in the midst of their substance use disorder and so they are starting a cop for kids program that we're going to roll out as one of our programs before long, where they kind of adopt those kids in that family and they take them to parks and they do activities with them and spend time with them just talking to them, and then we're hoping to set up if we can get a grant for it to set up some counseling for those young kids so that we start breaking those cycles of addictions in families. And then we're applying for a grant right now. That I'm really excited about and working with young mothers and postpartum mothers. That's an area that really you're dealing with a double stigma. I don't think there's any more stigmatized population than a woman who is using drugs, that's pregnant and as a result of that they get really bad care, which often results in birth defects for their offsprings, and it's really amazing. I just met with a group of young women today that were talking about the difficulties that they went through, and one of them was saying that she went to three OB-BYNs that would not treat her while she was pregnant.
Speaker 1:What in the world are we thinking? This is a mom bringing a child. You don't have to like what they do, but there are solutions to this. If you take time to look for them, you know. And that's the thing. And if you're working in the world of addiction, you need to constantly be asking ourselves are we getting good results? And if we're not, what do we need to change to get them? Because you know we keep telling people with addiction that if you're getting the same result over and over again, but you keep doing the same thing, you're just going to get the same results. But we in the world of treatment have been doing that.
Speaker 1:Doesn't it alarm you that you can go to an inpatient $30,000 treatment facility seven to 15 times and still not come out with different solutions? That's not the person that has the addictions problem. That's your treatment facility that has the problem. You've got to change what you're doing and it might be setting up a system of care that follows that person once they leave your facility.
Speaker 1:Your treatment might be great, but it doesn't end at the door, you know, and so partner with organizations like ours and others that are around the country that will stay the long course with that individual and give them that two years of sobriety that they need to ensure the longest term success that we can get. There are so many simple solutions to this that it is mind-boggling to me the great minds that work on this that can't see what's right in front of their plate. Why would insurance companies want to pay for $15,000, $30,000 inpatient treatments when truly the solution oftentimes is to just pay a very inexpensive peer coach to meet that person at the door when they're leaving treatment and connect them with all the other services that they need. You know, we make this so much more complicated than it has to be we make this so much more complicated than it has to be.
Speaker 3:Wow For our listeners who are hearing this and they are looking to take a step in terms of just getting more information, more help. What's the best way for them to connect with your organization? Maybe the Stronger Together groups, those kind of things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can go to faceaddictionnoworg. The program for parents is called Stronger Together. But I would also indicate that you know you need to start working in your own state and form groups that will train parents to be peer coaches, for you Just start talking.
Speaker 1:That's where this starts. Recovery starts with a conversation, and that's also for communities as well. Solutions start with conversations, and when you get in a group and there's a bunch of naysayers that say that'll never work, go find a different group to connect with, because there are solutions to this. You just have to find the people that are willing to put in the hard work to make it happen.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and we know here locally there's a number of amazing programs and through our friends at Live Well Kosciuszko, you can get connected with a lot of the different programs that we have. So, judge Davis, we cannot thank you enough for your time and just your willingness to share your story. It's a beautiful story. First, just your daughter's redemption in the way that she was able to turn her life around through the hard work and the sacrifices that you made on her behalf. But then I think how you and your position. You represent someone who was in the system that is now showing people struggling with addiction kindness, and you're showing them hope and potential and what they have in their life. So thank you for that. Thank you for the way that you've used this 180 in your life to make an incredible difference. We need many, many, many more people like you in the world. So thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much. Awesome, yeah, thank you both so much.
Speaker 1:You're welcome.
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